


Monsters

by beetle



Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Damaged Peter Parker, Deadpool Thought Boxes, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mentions of Flash Thompson - Freeform, Mentions of Murder, Past Rape/Non-con, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 18:22:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7768357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are <i>monsters</i>. Written for this writing prompt: (http://ourwritingprompts.tumblr.com/post/148887086140/writing-prompt-121).</p><p>Notes/Warnings: Non-graphic mentions of past-noncon. Non-graphic mentions of torture and murder. No spoilers for . . . anything, really. But TRIGGERS are a real thing, my friends. Heed the warnings. If you feel I've left off a crucial tag, let me know, and thanks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters

“I’m . . . sorry. . . .”

 

Peter snorted, pacing away from Deadpool, to the opposite edge of the roof. “For _what_?”

 

Deadpool sighed heavily, muttering—probably to his inconveniently chatty, damn Boxes. “Everything?”

 

“Jesus, Deadpool, you don’t even know what to be sorry _for_ , do you?” Peter turned to face the downcast mercenary, hands on his hips. He was tense and tired and so _angry_ he could _spit_. “Do you even _get_ that what you did was fucking _wrong_? Do you get _why_?”

 

“Listen, Petey-Pie—” Deadpool began quietly, sounding completely miserable. Peter held up a hand to halt any further apologies or excuses. He was getting fucking _sick_ of this shit.

 

“It’s _Spider-Man_. _Deadpool_. You _really_ need to be calling me _Spider-Man_ , right now,” Peter gritted out, this close to webbing the other man to a fare-thee-well and dragging his ass to the nearest police station. Not that it would ultimately do any good. There wasn’t a prison on this plane of existence that could keep Deadpool. To the lament of many.

 

Until now, Peter had never been one of those many.

 

“Spidey, _please_ . . . I’m _sorry_.”

 

“No, you’re _not_ , Deadpool! You’re _never_ sorry!” Peter exclaimed, throwing up his hands in the chilly, overcast night. “I’m not even certain you fucking _have_ _a conscience_!”

 

“I probably don’t.” Deadpool shook his head and looked down, seeming utterly at a loss. “But I’m sorry I keep making you mad . . . keep disappointing you.”

 

“It’s not about _disappointing me_ , it’s about right and wrong, Deadpool! _Wade_ —” Peter’s voice was a pleading bleat that caused him to fall silent and pinch the bridge of his nose. Too late to stave off the headache and nausea, but the gesture was habit, after years of friendship-without-then-with-benefits with Deadpool. “You tortured and killed a _civilian_!”

 

Deadpool looked up, his face hardening—visible even beneath the leather mask—his body squaring and stiffening into a threatening, martial sort of loom. But it wasn’t aimed at Peter. It never had been.

 

“No,” he said calmly. “I _put down_ a violent, unrepentant _animal_. A fucking _child-rapist_.”

 

Peter flinched and turned away, again. “A violent, unrepentant animal, huh? Someone’s got pot-kettle issues,” he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest—his heart was pounding so fast, he could barely breathe—and ignoring the second part of what Deadpool had said.

 

“I am what I am, Petey-Boy,” Deadpool said almost sadly. “I’m a fucking monster. I make no bones about that. But one thing I’ve _never_ done, was hurt a child. _Would_ never, _could_ never.”

 

Peter sighed, heart still racing, stomach churning alarmingly. “Stop . . . stop bringing up what he did. It doesn’t and _can’t_ change the fact of what _you’ve_ done.”

 

Silence, then. Unbroken by any sound that didn’t come from the city below. So of course, Peter flinched when Deadpool’s heavy, gloved hands landed on his shoulders. Flinched and nearly jumped out of his skin and off the roof.

 

“Not saying it does, Peter Pumpkin-Eater.” Deadpool's voice was so gentle and those hands kneaded Peter’s shoulders briskly, practically pulverizing the massive amounts of tension Peter had stored there. And which he was so used to—after nearly a decade—that he barely noticed it anymore. “But justice failed to get him. Failed _you_. So it was time and past for a little vengeance.”

 

Peter’s shoulders tried to tense up again, despite the punishing, perfect massage. “I should never have told you,” he whispered, closing his eyes on tears, then opening them again when the memories of what happened all those years ago started to replay themselves on a loop. The room spinning as he fought, ineffectively, against the hands pinning him. The handsome, blank, pitiless face hanging over his own, watching his struggles. Then being forcibly turned over and held down again . . .  then the pain had started and it hadn’t stopped for an _eternity_. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut . . . telling never does any good. Never helps. But I just don’t learn, I guess.”

 

“Sometimes telling _doesn’t_ do any good. Sometimes . . . the bad guys get away with some evil shit,” Deadpool agreed. “But I couldn’t let that happen, this time. Not with _this_ bad guy . . . not with _you_.”

 

  
“And what’s so goddamn special about _me_ that you’d kill in my name, Wade?” Peter asked dully, wearily. Only for the massage to slow to a stop, and Deadpool’s big arms to slide down and wind around his waist.

 

“Because it’s _you_ , Pete. Because it’s you, and I _love_ you.” Deadpool’s chin settled on the crown of Peter’s masked head. “Baby Boy, I love you and you _flinch_ _away_ whenever I touch you. Maybe not for long, maybe not far, and maybe not so anyone else’d notice. But you do. And _that_ rancid skidmark is to blame for it.” A weighty pause in which Peter could only barely hear Deadpool’s soft, even breathing. “He had to pay.”

 

“It was nearly a decade ago, Wade!”

 

Deadpool was the one to snort, this time. “So that makes it right? Makes it right that he _hurt_ you? Makes it right that you can’t even be touched without _remembering_ , first and foremost, what he _did_ to you? No matter _how_ gentle or loving that touch?”

 

Peter shook his head, as if that could get rid of the memories that were stuck in his stupid brain. As if he could shake off the _sense_ Deadpool was making.

 

“We were just stupid kids . . . we were drunk, and we didn’t know what we were doing . . . what we were getting ourselves into—”

 

“ _Don’t_ ,” Deadpool commanded stonily. “Don’t make excuses for that piece of walking garbage, Peter. He was _sixteen_. That’s old enough to know right from wrong. Old enough to know that you don’t do _that_ to _anyone_ , let alone someone you claim to care about.”

 

“You don’t understand, Wade,” Peter whispered, wishing he could sag back into Deadpool’s strong embrace. But he didn’t. He _couldn’t_. He had to be strong on his own, because Deadpool wouldn’t always be able to protect him. _No one_ had ever been able to protect him. He had never been safe once in his life—whether he'd known that or not—and now, never would be. “You _can’t_ understand—”

 

“I understand that you were let down _inexcusably_ when you were a kid. In the worst possible way. You were hurt and no one bothered to or was able to get justice for you.” Deadpool’s arms tightened around Peter. “I understand that you were _raped_ and that that’s not something you ever get over, really, only learn to live with, to some extent or other.” Peter flinched again at Deadpool’s use of the R-word. He had, himself, _never_ used it in regard _to_ himself. Not once. Neither had Aunt May or Uncle Ben. “I understand that someone like you—someone who’s good and moral and upright and who’s always had to be _strong_ —would _never_ seek the kinda street-justice I specialize in for himself. I understand that you don’t have it in you to do what I do, and that’s . . . one of the many things I love about you, Petey.”

 

Peter hung his head. “I can’t . . . it’s _not_ . . . Flash Thompson is _dead_ because I couldn’t keep my goddamn mouth shut!”

 

For a moment, Deadpool went dead- _still_. Then he was turning Peter in his arms, his hands squeezing Peter’s biceps hard enough that if he weren’t enhanced, there’d have been deep bruises and contusions.

 

“Listen up, Peter Parker, because I got somethin' important to say—yes, White, I _know_ we’ll probably only make things worse, but we have to _try_. Yellow . . . further mutilating Thompson's body and cutting it into even littler pieces won’t make our Petey feel any better, trust me—listen, Peter,” Deadpool went on when the Boxes had shut up. “Flash Thompson isn’t dead because you told me what he did to you. He’s dead because he _hurt_ _you_ and that needed addressing. End of story. He hurt what’s _mine_. And I don’t stand for that shit. Never have. I couldn’t protect you back then, and for that, I will _always_ be sorry, Baby Boy. But better late than never. Now, he can’t hurt you, or anyone else ever again.”

 

Peter’s sudden laugh was broken and bordering on hysterical. Because in that instant, as if he'd had a brief out-of-body-experience, Peter saw himself and his own motives clearly for the first time in years. He _understood_ , in that moment, who he was really angry at and why. He understood how his own twisted, cowardly mind and heart had played him and Deadpool, both, and with that understanding, his anger at the mercenary shifted focus to where it _truly_ belonged. “It’s _my_ fault, because I _told_ you, Wade. Do you think that, deep down, I didn’t _know_? That I didn’t _realize_ that you’d go on a quest to find and unalive him? Do you really _believe_ _that_? That somewhere inside, that outcome wasn’t _exactly_ what I wanted and planned for, on some level?” Burying his face in his hands, he let another disturbing laugh bubble out. “You’re _not_ the monster, Wade. You’re impulsive and you care too much and you sometimes show that in the _worst_ ways . . . but you were only trying to help. You’re no monster. _I’m_ the monster. And I tried to pin that label on you to avoid wearing it _myself_ , but . . . I’ve never been a good liar.”

 

“Pete—what the hell—?” Deadpool’s arms tightened around him further. The worry in both voice and embrace was palpable. Though Peter knew he didn’t deserve to, it made him want to hide forever in everything _Wade_. Because, as he’d long since known, Wade Wilson would do _anything_ for him: _die_ for him . . . even _kill_ for him, apparently. “What’re you _sayin’_?”

 

Risking a look up at Deadpool, Peter shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m telling you I committed premeditated murder through you and didn’t even pay you for the privilege.”

 

Deadpool stared at him for long moments, clearly nonplussed. Peter stared back, his mask the only reason he could hold Deadpool’s “gaze.”

 

Then Deadpool was crushing Peter even closer, rocking them both. “Oh, Pete . . . Jesus, baby, he messed you _all_ up, if you believe that you're the bad guy in this situation. . . .”

 

“I wanted vengeance and I found a way to get it. Took me almost ten years, but I finally got it. The only way I could.” Peter finally did sag in Deadpool’s muscular arms, against his powerful chest. The shaky breaths he drew in smelled of sweat and leather and blood. His arms at last wound around Deadpool’s neck, clutching and desperate. “I’ve become the lawlessness and chaos I’ve tried so hard to fight against.”

 

“ _No_. Even if that was the case, Baby Boy, you tried going the path of law and order when you were _fifteen_ , and what did it get you? Ostracized. Harassed. Driven away from your school and your neighborhood like a fugitive. But it certainly didn’t get you _justice_. Or peace of mind. Or happiness. It didn’t get you _your_ _life_ back.” Deadpool leaned back to look at him, reaching up to cup his face in one large, gentle hand. “You did _everything_ right, and all you got was _wronged_. I unalived that fuck because even though I know it can’t give you back all that was taken from you, it’s the closest to justice you’ll ever get in this awful, old world. I killed him because _I_ can bear up under the lives I’ve taken—especially his, and especially if it means _you_ don’t have to.”

 

“But I _do_ have to, Wade. I _have_ to be honest with us both—I manipulated a situation for a specific outcome. Then I _blamed you_ for the whole mess when you were only doing what I wanted.” Peter shuddered. “I’m so sorry, Wade! So sorry . . . you have no idea just how sorry . . . maybe I just thought the pain would finally _stop_. That it wouldn’t hurt to constantly _remember_ , if Flash was . . . gone. But it hurts even _worse_ , now!" He sniffled and his chest hitched painfully. "And the worst part is, no one could ever tell me _why_ he did it! Why _rape_ me, in the first place? Why’d he have to _hurt_ me? I was _his_! If he’d waited a little longer, I’d have let him do whatever he _wanted_ to me, I was so fucking in love with him! _Flash-fucking-Thompson_. . . ! I didn’t even care that he kept me like his dirty little secret . . . so, _why_ , Wade? _Why did it have to be this way_?”

 

For a long time, there was no answer but the tensing of Deadpool’s formidable muscles. The mercenary was angry, but not at Peter. _Never_ at Peter. Even now, after all Peter had done.

 

“I dunno, Baby Boy,” Deadpool said finally, his voice tight with rigid control and muted rage. “Sometimes, bad things just happen to good people. Because the world’s fulla scumbags who prey on the innocent. And that’s what you were. That’s what you _are_. It’s _not_ your fault that you sought the only form of redress that was available. The justice system _failed you horribly_. It let a rapist-motherfucker walk free for whatever reason, and left _you_ with a life that was pure _Hell_.”

 

Peter shook his head. “Even so, there’s no excuse for what I’ve allowed to be done. No givesies-backsies, no do-overs . . . no way to _atone_ for the evil I let happen in my name. Now, it’ll _never_ be over. I’m tied to Flash Thompson and to what he did to me _forever_. . . .”

 

As Peter wept—for the first time since Uncle Ben's funeral—Deadpool held him silently, his hand stroking up and down Peter’s sweaty back.

 

“I _love you_ , Petey, you hear me? I love you more than _anything_ in this world. More than I’ve ever loved _anyone_ ,” he murmured, his own breathing fast and erratic. A man of action, he clearly didn’t know what else to think or do, even though he obviously wanted to help. And so Peter felt guilty about _that_ , as well, and wept all the harder. Of all the people he’d ever wanted to suffer, the last person on his list was Wade Wilson. Wade had only ever tried to help him and take care of him. Had only ever defended him and loved him.

 

And, until he’d finally told Wade what had happened to him all those years ago, Peter had thought he’d been doing the same. That he was helping them _both_ redeem themselves. Doing the noble work of taking the pointless tragedies their lives had been and turning them into something meaningful and positive. Something _good_.

 

Then, in a moment of weakness, he’d opened his stupid mouth. . . .

 

Later, the same night he’d come clean to Wade about why he always flinched away when Wade initiated an intimate or even companionable touch—after Wade had carried him carefully to bed, laid him down, tucked him in, and stroked his hair till he fell asleep—Wade, no, _Deadpool_ , had disappeared for most of a week. Peter had woken up that next morning in Deadpool’s messy, insanely comfortable, insanely _expensive_ bed alone. He'd been frantic, knowing the moment he opened his eyes what the other man would try to do. Had _already_ done. Peter had driven himself mad tracking Deadpool down. And when, at last, Deadpool had let himself be found . . . he wasn’t alone.

 

Or at least, he _hadn’t_ been, until a few minutes before Peter had shown up. Flash Thompson, former high school athlete, varsity golden-boy, beloved idol of many . . . husband and father . . . after days of torture, had gurgled out his last labored breath before Spider-Man could save him. It had been a close thing, though.

 

(The bloody foam around his mouth hadn’t even dried yet, when Spider-Man had crashed through an already cracked window of the condemned warehouse and tackled Deadpool to the blood-tacky floor. . . .)

 

“We belong in prison,” Peter mumbled into Deadpool’s chest as the last of his tears soaked his already wet mask. He shuddered, feeling drained, exhausted, and _gross_ with sweat and fucking _tears_. “We are _monsters_ , Wade.”

 

The other man chuckled darkly. “We are what they _made us_ , sweetness. And no prison they devised could _ever_ hold _us_. No prison in _this_ _dimension_ , anyway.”

 

“Yeah.” Peter smiled wryly, ruefully. “More’s the pity,” he acknowledged with a heavy, watery sigh. “ _Pity_ . . . where would we be right now if you hadn’t pitied me and murdered a man because of it?”

 

“I don’t _do_ pity, Peter Parker.” Deadpool kissed his forehead. “I didn’t kill him because I pitied you or thought less of you. I did it because I was _angry_ and wanted to get some kinda _justice_ for you. Because I wanted to make you feel _safe_. Because I _love_ you and you’re _mine_. Like I said, nobody hurts what’s mine and if they somehow _do_ , they have to _pay_. To _suffer_ till their last. Fucking. Breath.”

 

Peter shuddered again. “I can’t say I’d do the same for you,” he lied limply, then immediately laughed at himself. “Who’m I kidding? If someone tried to take you from me, I’d _burn the world down_ to get you back. Or to avenge you.”

 

“Petey—” that concern and uncertainty was back in Deadpool’s gravelly, low voice. Peter leaned back to look up at his lover, his eyes fierce behind their mask and filled with tears once more.

 

“You know that I _do_ love you, right, Wade?” he asked desperately, reaching up to cup Deadpool’s masked face in both trembling hands. He wished it were safe to take off their masks, but they’d agreed not to risk it away from their respective lairs. “That this thing between us . . . that I’d do anything and _everything_ for you? Even _kill_? That even though I automatically flinch when you—or anyone else—touches me, it’s a reflex that's become tangled up with my spidey-sense? And not an indictment of you or a summation of how I _feel_ for you, right? That even if you unalived a _million_ Flash Thompsons, I’d still love you in a way that’s not _entirely_ sane or remotely _healthy_?”

 

Deadpool was hesitant in answering—a lacuna so brief Peter barely noticed it.

 

“I know, now,” Deadpool said in a bemused, wondering tone that quickly faded into a gruff sort of acceptance. “I mean . . . I understand if you kinda _hate_ me, too, right now, for making things worse for you, and being such a damn disappointment. Again. . . .”

 

“Never, Wade. _Never_. I could never hate you. And you've _never_ disappointed me. Frustrated the _shit_ out of me on an hourly basis . . . but never disappointed me. I'm sorry I made you feel you had. Sorry for . . . a lot of things,” Peter whispered, standing on tip-toe to press his covered lips to Deadpool’s covered lips. Deadpool held him close and tight, lingering at the kiss hungrily, yearningly, even as Peter breathed humid, shaky _I love you_ s against their masks.

 

“God, I love you, too! _So much_ , Petey! So _fucking_ much that the fucking _words_ aren’t enough. Even _killing_ for you isn’t enough to express how much I love you. _Nothing_ _is_ , really,” Deadpool murmured on his lips, then leaned his forehead against Peter’s with a soft, slightly frustrated sigh. “So . . . what happens, now, Baby Boy?”

 

Peter gasped and chuckled a little as Deadpool suddenly swung his compact frame up into his arms and strode off across the roof.

 

“I suppose now, we go home and hose off, Mr. Pool,” Peter said slowly, hanging on tight to Deadpool as the man jumped off the roof they were on—only three stories up—and nailed a perfect superhero landing, splintering concrete and nearly pancaking a stray tabby, which streaked away into the shadows with a frightened _mmmrow!_

 

“Home,” Deadpool repeated absently, a smile in his rough voice. “Your place, or mine, gorgeous?”

 

“You even have to ask?”

 

Deadpool laughed a tad unsurely. “My t.v. _is_ bigger. Plus, I have _Mario-Kart_ and _The Complete Lego Star Wars_.”

 

“The two reasons I put up with that disaster-area you call an apartment.”

 

“The _only_ two reasons?” Peter could practically hear Deadpool’s brow quirk and he smiled almost unwillingly. The story of his life with Deadpool.

 

“Maybe not the _only_ two,” he admitted, nuzzling the side of Deadpool’s face and nipping at the left cheek of the mask just sharply enough that Deadpool moaned.

 

“ _Fuck_ , Petey,” he exhaled so softly, even Peter could barely hear it.

 

“Yeah, that’s a reason, as well,” Peter agreed quietly, and they both clutched at each other tighter and at the same moment. Deadpool carried him cross-town, toward the slow-bleed of sunrise, in a few peaceful minutes—even at five-thirty in the morning, they encountered people just starting their day or just finishing it, who stared openly at the spectacle of the infamous _Deadpool_ carrying an equally infamous and obviously amorous Spider-Man—humming _Stand By Your Man_.

 

“I also hang around for your _bangin'_ pancakes,” Peter said thoughtfully, swinging his legs a bit as Deadpool took them into an Uptown subway station. From the sound, a train had just left, which meant there wouldn’t be another for at least half an hour. It would’ve been faster for Peter to web them home, but Deadpool was clearly in a dominant, Alpha, I'ma-take-care-of-my-Baby-Boy-mood, and Peter was . . . more than alright with that. All he wanted and needed at the moment was to be taken care of by Wade. To just _be Wade's_. “Gonna make me breakfast before you sex me up, stud?”

 

“Have I ever _not_ , Baby Boy?” Deadpool kissed Peter’s crown. “I’ll make you all the pancakes you can eat. And then, you’re gonna call outta work. _And then_ , I’m probably gonna spend the day memorizing every inch of your body. With my tongue. If . . . you know, that’s okay with you. . . ?”

 

Shivering, Peter leaned his head against Deadpool’s. Maybe they _were_ monsters . . . but they were _each_ _other's_ monsters. And Peter couldn't deny that consolation felt . . . _damn_ good. “I can’t think of any other way I’d rather spend today, Wade.”

 

“You sure, Peter?” Deadpool asked reluctantly. “I mean, after . . . _everything_?”

 

Peter closed his eyes for a few moments—on the backs of his eyelids, he saw nothing but darkness . . . his memories of what happened had, for the next little while, been shunted back to the dark corner of his mind he had reserved for them years ago—then opened them, exchanging darkness for the comforting sight of his lover.

 

“Absolutely positive,” he promised, tucking his head under Deadpool’s chin. The mercenary jumped the turn-style with practiced ease, not even disrupting the grip he had on Peter. As he walked down to the northern end of the platform, he started singing lightly, absently, under his breath:

 

“ _My baby takes the morning train/ He works from nine ‘til five, and then/ He takes another home again/ To find me waitin' for him_. . . .”

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _“I’m sorry.”_  
>  “For what?”  
> “Everything.”
> 
> [Follow me on Tumblr](https://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com/), where I pimp my angst and porn like a BOSS!


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